College and Pro Football: This Weekend's Best Bets

The Texans are on a bye this weekend, so in addition to taking a little vacation time in Chicago to see my kids, normally I might take a day off (and weekend off) from dropping my "recreational purposes" football knowledge on all of you (knowledge which would have emptied your pockets with an 0-6 showing two weeks ago, I know...nevertheless).

But as they say in the movie Wall Street, money never sleeps, kid! We need to go make our $800,000 in Hong Kong gold. Or hit a six team parlay on a bunch of home dogs. Same thing.

So with all due respect to the Houston Texans, I hope they have a nice vacation, but we aren't sleeping, baby! We went 4-2 last week. Positive momentum is back!!

Let's do this (granted, I will be doing this quickly, vacation style)....

AUBURN -21 over Texas A&M As surreal as the Johnny Manziel Era seemed while it was actually occurring, it seems ten times more surreal now, now that the Agggies are back to being unable to find a quarterback they like, now that they're back to losing by double digits routinely. I mean...THESE ARE OUR AGGIES, right?!? Seriously, A&M, it's good to have you back. If someone had told me before the season that I could get A&M catching double digits, I'd have asked where to sign. Now they're catching three touchdowns and I wouldn't touch them with a ten foot pole. Besides, how can I pick against a coach who has this in his digital thumbprint....

TEXAS +3.5 over West Virginia Let me preface this by saying two things:

1. Dana Holgerson deserves serious consideration right now for Coach of the Year in college football. In Year 3 at West Virginia (the "true colors" year for most college football programs), the Mountaineers were buried under a one dimensional offense, no defense, and a totla lack of discipline. Now, I don't even recognize them. They run the football, they play hard nosed defense...I mean....they're a GOOD football team.

2. The Fake Dana Holgorsen deserves serious consideration for Fake Coach of the Year on Twitter (neck and neck with the Fake Bo Pelini)...

Please let it be Vanderbilt. RT @kbohls Oliver Luck tells me West Virginia working on scheduling home-and-home series with an SEC East team.

That said, they're finishing a four game run that's seen two Holgorsen "former employer" road wins (Texas Tech, Oklahoma State), a win over a top 5 team at home (Baylor), and last week a crushing near win over another top 10 team at home (TCU). I think this is a huge letdown week against a team looking for a signature win to show the Charlie Strong Era is turning the corner.

Notre Dame +2.5 over ARIZONA STATE Speaking of the need for a signature win, different level of the college football high rise, but the Irish seriously need one if they're gong to get into the mix of one-loss teams seeking a playoff berth. Right now, their signature game is a loss to second ranked Florida State. Everett Golson is 19-1 as a starting QB in the regular season. I refuse to think that this is the spot where Todd Graham finally wins a game that matters.

Broncos -12 over RAIDERS Every week I get emails from different tout services with different metrics and trends for all of the match ups. Usually, the trends create some sort of crosswinds that then encourage you to buy picks from that service to help "unmuddy the waters." (Is "unmuddy" a word?) Well, here's what I got on this game from one service:

· Broncos 8-1 ATS last 9 road games vs. AFC West · Broncos 4-1 ATS last 5 meetings with Raiders · Broncos 3-8 ATS last 11 games as double-digit road favorites (2-0 ATS last 2, both at Raiders) · Raiders 1-5 ATS last 6 games as home underdogs · Raiders 3-7 ATS last 10 home games vs. AFC West

Even the one bullet point that is in the Raiders favor has a positive Broncos caveat! No unmuddying necessary here. We are riding the Broncos big.

Giants +10.5 over SEAHAWKS And then the same service sends me this:

· Giants 6-1 ATS last 7 road games vs. NFC West · Seahawks 0-4 ATS last 4 games · Seahawks 5-10-1 ATS last 16 home games vs. NFC East

Are you kidding me? Information that is begging me to take Eli Manning and the GOD AWFUL Giants in Seattle against the defending Super Bowl champions?!? Why do you do this to me gambling gods?!? (//hits SEND on Giants wager....chugs whiskey////)

PACKERS -8 over Bears Speaking of the Seahawks, did you know that if the season ended today, the Seahawks would just barely eke into the sixth seed in the NFC playoffs in the last wildcard spot, just ahead of Green Bay, courtesy of their head-to-head opening night win over the Packers back in September? Also, did you know who the two favorites are to win the NFC right now? Check this out:

Sean Pendergast is a contributing freelance writer who covers Houston area sports daily in the News section, with periodic columns and features, as well. He also hosts afternoon drive on SportsRadio 610, as well as the post game show for the Houston Texans.